3rd horse – should we or shouldn’t we?

We’ve been toying with the idea of getting another horse. We have two now and our barn is setup with three completed stalls. Here’s our reasoning: we could use a practice horse, one that’s well broken (bulletproof, as they say). Our horses are awesome but they need work. Sometimes one of us just wants to go for a ride. A third horse would let us do that. Also, once we whip our horses into shape for trail riding, what’s the kid going to do? We can’t just leave him home. He needs a horse to ride, too. And speaking of the kid, he’s a little afraid of our two horses. They’re young and energetic. He’s heard of my fall on Moonshine and Mikki’s wild ride on Valentine. If we had an old, broken horse for him to ride maybe it would increase his confidence. Plus, we’d love for him to have the experience of owning a horse as a kid. Not many kids get to do that. I know I wasn’t able to but I would have loved it.

The cons…well probably the biggest con at this point is the expense. Horses are cheap but maintaining them isn’t. We’re hoping to get a good deal for our winter hay in the next week or two and we’d have enough for a third horse. Supplemental feed is reasonable. The shoeing is expensive, though, as is medical care, as needed. We’d need aother saddle, but that’s a one-time expense. And then there’s the age thing. If we get a 20-25 year old horse, it could live 10 more years, or 1 more year. Also, the kid hasn’t especially expressed an interest in having his own horse. I fear Mikki and I would be stuck taking care of it. It’s not hard, since we’re already caring for two others, but I want to teach responsibility.

What do you think? Should we do it? Not that we’ll listen to advice or reason, since we tend to purchase/acquire animals on intuition emotion anyway. But I’d love to hear your thoughts.